A bittersweet weekend

Hello again! This weekend was an epic one for the books! It began a bit somber, with Friday night drinks to say good-bye to my best bud Nate. He is off to Vietnam to teach for a year and I must say Suji just won't be the same without him. Since I have arrived here, Nate has been pretty much at my side. He has seen the best and worst and I am glad to call him a friend. I went out for dinner with some friends and then we had drinks to say farewell. The plan was to be home by 11pm as I had to be up at 6am to leave for a weekend bike trip. I ended up getting home around 2am after a crazy night!

Needless to say, Saturday morning was a bit tough. I woke up at 6am and left Suji at 7:30 to ride and meet up with the crew of bikers I was going away with. I met up with Jared(the trip organizer) and his girlfriend Katie. We then rode 30km into Seoul where we met up with about 12 other cyclists and departed for Seorak. We had a full day of biking ahead! It was a beautiful, hot sunny day! Since I was already dehydrated from my night out, I was sucking back as much water and gatorade as humanly possible. The beginning of the day was easy for the most part. We rode east on the Han River in Seoul and out into the country. We stopped for lunch in a small town and prepared to get ready for an afternoon of climbing. Now, I must state that Jared advertised this trip as a "beginner ride weekend", that being said, I am a frequent cycler, but knew I wasn't great at climbing. But, hey, he said it was for beginners so I figured I'd have no problems. I've done harder. Before we reached the mountain, we had a small climb(when heading into this "small" climb, I thought it was a HUGE climb, I am now aware that it was tiny!!)

Hot, sweaty and exhausted, we headed into the big climb of the weekend. A 640 meter mountain!!! I was unprepared for how hard this would be. It was a grueling hour and a half of climbing.

I didn't think I could make it but I did!! At the top we all waited together for everyone to arrive so we could all cruise down the valley to our pension(hotel). When I reached the top I was in pain. I realized that while I had made sure to consume lots of liquid, during the climb, I had neglected to eat anything. At that point, I was feeling pretty weak and kind of like I was going to throw up. But, I powered through, grabbed a soda and then cruised down the mountain with the rest of the crew. The ride down was amazing, probably the steepest descend I have done! I was getting some major speed! Once we arrived at the pension, we showered and went to find food. A girl a met on the trip, Rebecca and I came back and watched movies and passed out early. The rest of the gang had some drinks outside, my previous night of drinking held me back from drinking again!

Waking up on day two, I was very nervous. Could I make it home? What if we had climbs today? How would I make it up them? We started the route with a climb(much smaller than the day before!) but that quickly turned into a road that was basically all down hill with a view ups and downs. It took us along the river almost the whole way! The views were amazing and the air was crisp and clean!

The rest of the day went by quickly. I was amazed at how much energy I had! Turns out when you are not hungover biking is much easier! We stopped for a quick snack and then it was back to Seoul! Overall I biked 240km this weekend!! Pretty pumped and proud of myself! Now I can keep climbing!!!

The whole crew made it back alive! I had an amazing weekend with some awesome people!!! Can't wait to get our riding with these people again!!